


Doctor's Cure

by bold_seer



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Doctors & Physicians, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Foreshadowing, Gen, POV Stephen Strange, Perfectionism, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-25 22:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bold_seer/pseuds/bold_seer
Summary: His hands were shaking. His hands never shook.





	Doctor's Cure

Even a busy hospital wasn’t equally busy at all hours, in all areas. Doctor Stephen Strange sat alone, a brooding figure in the dim light. The lone genius, surrounded by fog. Stepped off a cliff and out of a painting, stranded in an empty cafeteria. A tired man, who’d faced his own limits, perhaps for the first time.

His hands were shaking. His hands never shook. If there were two certainties, the rock and pillar that carried his life, those were his sound judgment and precision. His hands. Which were meant to save, and yet it occurred to him that they also held an invisible danger, the potential for irreparable damage. Causing harm instead of healing, even unintentionally. They weren’t the hands of a god he didn’t believe in.

He wasn’t so arrogant he didn’t recognise the dangers of hubris. The vicinity of a mistake was a humbling, new experience. He didn’t make mistakes. Mistakes cost lives. Mistakes cost him his reputation. His chosen field, the work he was supposed to excel at, above anything and anyone else, had been shown in a new light. Something he could fail at. He couldn’t. A GP could misdiagnose people all day, but a neurosurgeon who wasn’t perfect was a perfectly useless neurosurgeon.

He couldn’t afford to make mistakes. It was expensive for the hospital. It was _incredibly_ expensive for the patients. He couldn’t afford to be seen making mistakes. If this continued, he could pack his bags and head for Nebraska. Never show his face in New York again.

“Stephen? I thought you’d left.”

Home, it meant. To eat or sleep, human activities which were necessary, but could be put off, for a time. An apartment as sterile and empty as the hospital, only more expensively furnished. She didn’t know that, of course, but could guess. Christine, suitably no-nonsense to get along with both Stephen and other staff.

It was possible. You could be a nurse, or a doctor, or a surgeon, who was both competent and nice. Who’d ever heard of a nice neurosurgeon? A nice, successful neurosurgeon. Most importantly, a nice neurosurgeon who was actually worth anything.

It wasn’t like saving patients, the gratitude from their loved ones never warmed his heart – he wasn’t completely unfeeling – but it wasn’t the point. The point was saving lives, which is why he stuck to commanding the OR.

He thought of saying something cutting to be left alone, but didn’t have the energy to think of an appropriate insult. Something rude, though not unforgivably so.

He should’ve gone home. He should sleep. He shouldn’t wallow. Shouldn’t admit to weakness.

“I was wrong,” he said out loud, surprising himself. That never happened. It could never happen. He’d come too far to doubt himself. Doctor Strange was a cocky, self-assured bastard. He could live with that rep. But Doctor Strange never made mistakes. And now he’d (almost) proved to be a fraud. Instead of the one per cent of the one per cent, he was fallible and human. If to err was human - or was it the other way around? - being human was completely useless. As useless as he had been in saving –

He never really thought about the past. Depths to drown in. Sharp rocks in the water. It was useful only so far that it had carried him where he was now. The current, moving.

“You made the right call.” He heard sympathy in Christine’s voice, not quite tipping over into pity. “Patient’s okay. More than okay.”

Her hand on his shoulder felt nice. More than nice? For the moment, he thought, nice. A closeness he rarely felt. Less straightforward. He was too tired to think of what it meant. Two figures in the dark, surrounded by it, but a light shone on them. Together, and apart somehow, their relationship or connection tenuous and uncertain. It was a Hopper painting, not Metro-General Hospital.

Christine people would say was beautiful inside out. She had a good heart. But they were doctors and knew what was on the inside. The heart, good or bad, was an organ among others. Bloody and beating.

He could allow himself this weakness, but it would never happen again. If it did, he would hide it better. Bury it deep. Let it sink.

He focused on his hands, which were perfectly steady.


End file.
